


Ruefully

by IceQueen1



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alliance, Badass sci fi females, F/M, Gen, Just found the original works tag, Multi, Space Opera, Star ship captain, but seriously, space western, totally winging this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 08:40:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11353869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceQueen1/pseuds/IceQueen1
Summary: Rue wasn't looking to be a captain. She spent her whole life trying to avoid responsibility. Unfortunately, life seems to have other plans. When she unexpectedly becomes captain of a starship for the Alliance in their Space Corps fleet, she can't seem to get out of it.So why not have a little fun?Between pirates, genocidal maniacs, new planets and new adventures, there doesn't seem to be a lot of time for anything else. But what lurks in the Black is worse than anyone could've imagined.





	Ruefully

“They said you were willing to sign a full confession if I came in here to talk to you,” Fleming said, pulling out the seat opposite the other officer. According to her paperwork, she was almost thirty, but looking at her now, sitting on one end of the interrogation room’s table, she looked maybe just old enough to enlist. For the most part, she was rather unremarkable – mid-tone brown hair, blue eyes, honey colored skin and average build. If she stood up, Fleming guessed she would be just over five foot. Really, the only thing worth noting was her uniform jacket was obviously too large for her, giving her the appearance of a child stealing a parent’s article of clothing for dress up, and _that_ smile. She was practically glowing. The smile that split her face almost in two reminded him of an old children’s story about a riddling cat and a world of nonsense.

Which is pretty much where he found himself right now.

The woman grimaced apologetically. “Yeah, about that…” She put her cuffed hands on the table, fingertips down on the table and her palms raised off the top. “Here’s the thing. I can’t _actually confess,_ per say. Not so much as _clear up some misunderstandings_.”

Fleming raised an eyebrow. “Do you have something to say or not? I have a ship to run.”

“Coincidentally, so do I. But sir, hear me out. This isn’t what it looks like.”

“So you didn’t, in fact, commandeer a fleet ship, shanghai her crew, turn them against the Alliance, and spring a war criminal from prison?”

Rue blinked, then smiled sheepishly. “Well when you say it in that tone of voice, of course it sounds terrible.”

The Captain sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Do you have a confession to make or not?”

Rue drew an absent minded circle across the top of the table. “Weeeell….no. Because I didn’t actually _do_ any of that. Well, I sort of did. Just, not like that. I didn’t actually lie or break any rules. People simply…” the commander looked up at the captain out of the corner of her eye, “made assumptions that I didn’t bother to correct.”

“So you lied intrinsically, not explicitly.”

“I omitted clarifying facts.”

Fleming slammed a hand down on the table, but Rue failed to jump. Instead, her mouth quirked upwards in a smile. “You paraded around a dozen star systems as a _pirate_ , Commander.”

“Oh, hey now, that’s not true. I stayed in uniform! I obeyed all the regulations! I even kept morale up!”

Fleming scowled. “Yes, you did. I do unfortunately have to concede that point. Your ‘crew’ is currently singing your praises. Not metaphorically either, they’re actually singing shanties about your adventures.”

“Any good?” Rue asked.

“Obnoxiously catching.”

“Oh good. They’ve captured my essence. My boys are the best.”

“This isn’t a game, Commander!”

“Actually, Captain, it’s Petty Officer,” Rue said, wincing.

The Captain stopped short, whatever argument he had coming to a screeching halt. “What?”

Rue shrugged her shoulders, the chains on her cuffs rattling with the movement. “I’m not a commissioned officer. I’m a petty officer. I’m only an E4. I actually failed out of officer candidate school. And I’m pretty sure I’m only twenty-five, not thirty-one, like that file says. But hey…I’ll take it.”

Fleming worked his mouth several times, unsuccessfully trying to form a thought more intelligent than repeating, “ _What_?”

“So here’s the story…we were getting ready for our deep space mission, you know, deployment to one of the outer colonies and into uncharted territories, right? Maiden voyage for the crew and the ship, BIG deal orders, you know?  Anyway, we were all set to go, we had one foot out the door, and our captain just loses his shit. Completely goes psycho, ranting and raving about how he doesn’t want to go out into the black, that this wasn’t his assignment, blah blah blah, okay? So, get this – he just storms off the bridge. Like that.” Rue snapped her fingers. “The last thing he does, other than flipping us the bird, is point to me and say ‘Con is yours, kid.’ And then he just _leaves_!”

“Did anyone else see this?” Fleming asked.

“The helmsman and the navigator, and that’s about it. One was even lower ranking than me, and the other one was just sort of an idiot, you know? So there I was, _officially_ appointed captaincy of a _star ship_ and it occurred to me…well, why not? I mean, if you just happened to be in the right place at the right time for something like that, that’s got to be a sign from God, right? Or whatever you happen to believe in. The COSMOS was telling me to take the helm.”

Fleming stared at her, his mouth open in disbelief. “You were _actually_ appointed the Captain’s chair? By the CO?”

“I know, right? Totally unbelievable. Well, when I went down to go find the XO, so I can explain this to him, right? Turns out he’s _never_ seen the other CO. Didn’t know his name, nothing. So he starts talking to me like _I’m_ the Captain. I’ve worked around officers on the bridge my whole career, so you know, some things just rub off on you. I guess I sounded pretty convincing, but when I tried to explain myself he didn’t believe me! He thought I was just pulling his leg! And yeah, I know, I should’ve brought it to Command’s attention, but I reeeally wanted to go on that mission. We all did. We’d said good bye to our families, sold off worldly possessions, had award winning photo op good byes on the pier, the whole deal. How could I tell them ‘hey, sorry man, but the Cap went nutty and stormed off, so we’re not going’. They were like little eager ducklings, all staring at me with those cute little fluffy duckling sad faces. Tell me you can say no to the fluffy duckling sad face, and you’d be the first.”

“So they just… _assumed_ you were an officer? What the hell was on your uniform?”

Rue had the good graces to look at least mildly embarrassed about that one. “That’s about the only thing I could get in trouble for. It was cold on the bridge, so I grabbed a jacket. I didn’t realize until after I’d tried to argue with the XO that it was the former Captain’s coat with the eagles instead of crows. Those look an awful lot alike, sir, just saying. You might want to rethink having all birds for insignia.”

“And what, you just never took it off?”

“It’s _cold_ in the bridge! The only time I took it off was when I was in my cabin. And yes, part of the reason I kept the ruse up was I didn’t want to sleep in the female berthing with fifty other chicks who didn’t understand quiet hours or basic hygiene.”

Fleming fought the urge to slam his head into the table. “So how on Earth did you get the reputation as a _pirate_?”

“Ah. That. Well, we started that as a joke. Every time we went to get supplies, we started referring to it as raiding. Nobody wanted to go on a working party, but we had to turn people away from raiding parties. So then some guys decided costumes were in order, and why not? Kept them in good spirits. And then someone else saw us, and took it seriously. They wouldn’t even give us a chance to explain before they started shooting!” Rue said, looking indignant. “I mean, I know they were scruffy looking, but really? How convincing were they that the Navy couldn’t even listen to us about it being a joke?”

“You sent people on away missions like that?” Fleming said incredulously.

“Don’t be stupid, of course not. I didn’t trust anyone else enough to go down to the planets or other ships to talk to them, so I was always going with a couple of guys from the SWCC teams.”

Fleming stared at her, until she fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat. “What?”

“You went everywhere with basically a suicide squad as your entourage? The Fleet doesn’t send armed personnel, and especially not their _commanding officer_ to a planet or another ship for routine missions. Their job is to stay on the bridge and send someone else who specializes in the local trade and culture. The only ones who don’t do that, i.e. what _you_ were doing, are pirates!”

“Well, that’s what happens when someone with no experience gets appointed to captain without passing all their quals. You should make the requirements a little stricter so it doesn’t happen again.”

“They _were_ strict, you just… ” Fleming cut himself off, sucking in a breath of air and counting to ten, and then continued to twenty before exhaling. “Young lady, _you_ are apparently the human equivalent of Teflon. For all of your gallivanting across eight systems with a ship that _wasn’t yours_ , impersonating an officer, making contact with new species and races, making _deals_ with said new friends, and evading arrest and not trying to correct the matter before it got so wildly out of hand, you only have _one_ charge out of twenty-six that actually stuck.”

“Really?” Rue sounded almost disappointed. “Which one was that? Failure to report? Dueling?”

“Dueling?” Fleming repeated, raising an eyebrow.

Rue backtracked hastily. “I mean, what crazy, trumped up charge that I had no part in did they stick me with?”

“Article 108.”

Rue’s mouth dropped open. “ _Destruction of government property_?”

“Your ship-”

“Oh, so _now_ it’s mine! Where were you when they dragged me in here for sedition and mutiny?” Rue demanded.

“THE ship!” Fleming corrected, voice rising over her protests until she clamped her mouth shut and crossed both arms across her chest, pouting. “The _Pioneer_ was the flagship of the forward deployed fleet! She was commissioned _three days_ before you left with her. Not one bolt was out of place. Not one streak of paint dripped.”

“Yeah, so?”

Fleming raised an eyebrow. “Have you seen it lately?”

“Last I saw was the bridge before HAVOC came and hauled me off Schutzstaffel style. It was well loved, but hardly destroyed.”

Fleming inwardly cringed at the mention of HAVOC. The elite squadron wasn’t exactly known for their humane treatment of prisoners, if they bothered to take them at all. The SS may not be the best comparison, but it was certainly not inaccurate.

“Your engines have been cobbled together with apparently spit, duct tape, and the sheer force of will of your engineering department. You’ve obviously been in several combative scenarios, and you’ve added illegal weapons to the arsenal. The transporter has been so severely misaligned with the approved frequencies it’s been rendered inoperable by the Fleet’s other ships. There are several systems we can’t even begin to recognize and we have no records or even the imaginings of what you’ve done to your computer systems. You have old mixed with new technologies, and you’ve turned the brand new, multi _trillion-dollar_ flag ship from the _Pioneer_ into the _Theodore Roosevelt_.”

“Oh, hey now, that’s cold. We are _not_ as bad as the Mobile Chernobyl. I resent that comparison,” Rue protested. “And let me get this straight…you’re mad because we made _improvements_?”

“It’s the nature of the improvements we’re questioning.”

Rue smiled, this time like a self-satisfied cat next to an empty canary cage and a feather sticking out of its mouth. “You’re not mad about my new toys. You’re mad because I won’t _share_.”

“What concerns us is _how_ and the _where_ you came by them. Some we’ve never even seen, and the Fleet casts a wide net in the galaxy. In several, actually, as you well know. And we’ve never come across some of the things we found onboard the _Pioneer_.”

“And you what, think I sold state secrets to get them? That I somehow compromised the integrity of my ship and my crew for something new and shiny?”

“It’s a logical conclusion.”

Rue’s face darkened into a scowl that suddenly aged her years, and the light, joking mood evaporated.

Fleming could now see how the Alliance confused her with a blood thirsty pirate and enemy of the state who warranted personal escort from Section 31.

“Captain Fleming. I have operated a star ship the size of a small moon for the last four years, without any guidance, Alliance assistance, and having been kicked out of the officer’s track at the Academy. I have lost shipmates I was personally responsible for, and helped whenever and wherever I could offer. From one captain to another, you will show me the same respect you would show anyone else wearing those eagles – just because the rank is borrowed doesn’t mean that the responsibility doesn’t fall to me. I would never, _ever_ suggest that you behaved in any way other than honorably and in the best interest of your ship and your crew. Kindly show me the same respect.”

She did have a point. The _Pioneer_ clearly had seen combat. The scorch marks on the hulls and the strained engines and crew were clear indicators. And dammit, it _was_ impressive that someone who had been in for a fraction of the time as most captains, especially ones going on deep space missions, had managed to successfully keep the crew _and_ the ship together.

Fleming sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. _Fine_. How about you tell me _your_ version of how things went down?”

Rue eyed him appraisingly, that cold, emotionless mask remained in place for several moments and Fleming was reminded of the Egyptian myth of having one’s soul weighed for worth. Apparently, she saw something she liked, because in an instant, that radiant smile was back as she folded her arms across her chest. “Where should we start, Captain?”

“How about the morning of July seventh, four years ago?”


End file.
